Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good
The holiday season is upon us once more, and like many years before (especially since I moved away to college and then the Army) I find myself impatiently looking forward to Christmas break and being home with family and the festiveness of it all, and nearly overlooking Thanksgiving Day in my eagerness for Christmas.
This year though I’ve been trying (more or less successfully) to focus more on Thanksgiving and in particular on actually being thankful and expressing the thankfulness to God and also to others around me.
Despite this effort I’ve found myself complaining a lot recently. I’m going to complain a little bit right now, just to sort of set the stage for the rest of this post. I really don’t like where I am right now. I had to leave some really good friends to come here, the rules are, in my opinion, ridiculous, and the wind is horrible. I could go on but I think just saying that I REALLY don’t like this training very much pretty much covers it.
Despite how many things I find to complain about I honestly can’t say that I am unhappy or dissatisfied with my life because the good completely outweighs the bad and I have so many things to be thankful for, even here in the middle of nowhere Texas. So this will pretty much just be me talking about some of the things I’m thankful for this year.
Five seems like a good number to stop at although I could easily continue.
I wish that more attention was paid to Thanksgiving. We need some more thankfulness in our lives, I think. It isn’t just a day to mark the beginning of the Christmas season. It makes me sad that Thanksgiving is almost just a hurdle to jump before getting good deals at Black Friday sales (which are starting earlier and earlier, how sad. Although I have to be honest and say I went shopping earlier… I guess I’m a bit of a hypocrite.) I wish there were more songs about being thankful that we could sing in Church, and more movies we could watch to remind us of how much we have to be thankful for. How much more meaningful would Christmas be if we went into it full of thankfulness already? What would our gift giving/Christmas shopping look like? Maybe we’d buy less junk and spend money and time on more useful things.
I suppose the first place to start with these idealistic goals is with myself, because if I as one person can’t do it, there is no way I can expect anyone else to either.
I will end with this quote which has been stuck in the back of my mind since I first read it (which I confess to finding on another blog post about Thanksgiving, found here http://emmausroadworshipers.com/2014/11/25/thanksgiving-as-worship-worship-as-thanksgiving/).
"One of the most excellent methods of showing our thankfulness for deliverances is to tell our brethren what the Lord has done for us. We mention our sorrows readily enough; why are we so slow to declare our deliverances?" -- Charles Spurgeon, Treasury of David
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
This year though I’ve been trying (more or less successfully) to focus more on Thanksgiving and in particular on actually being thankful and expressing the thankfulness to God and also to others around me.
Despite this effort I’ve found myself complaining a lot recently. I’m going to complain a little bit right now, just to sort of set the stage for the rest of this post. I really don’t like where I am right now. I had to leave some really good friends to come here, the rules are, in my opinion, ridiculous, and the wind is horrible. I could go on but I think just saying that I REALLY don’t like this training very much pretty much covers it.
Despite how many things I find to complain about I honestly can’t say that I am unhappy or dissatisfied with my life because the good completely outweighs the bad and I have so many things to be thankful for, even here in the middle of nowhere Texas. So this will pretty much just be me talking about some of the things I’m thankful for this year.
- I’m thankful for my family. I have been so incredibly blessed with an amazing family, both immediate and extended. The older I get the more I learn how lucky I am to have grown up in the family that I did. Of course no family is perfect and our family has had its ups and downs and struggles and moments of stupidity, but all and all I couldn’t ask for better parents, or siblings, or aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents/etc. I have only ever been encouraged and loved by them and for that I am so thankful! I honestly don’t know what I would do without the loving support that they provide. If nothing else was on this list, the blessing that my family is to me would be enough to outweigh all the things I complain about.
- I’m thankful for my job. Even though at the moment it is the main source of my complaints, every time I complain I am reminded of the fact that at least I am gainfully employed, making more money than I ever have before, traveling to all sorts of new places (some better than others, but I’m happy to see new parts of the country even if they aren’t exotic or exciting), and I’ve met some great people and made some really great new friends. And even though the training is long and obnoxious the benefits are worth it. I thank God often that he led me to this career field as it just fits my situation so well, and I didn’t know anything about it and had other plans for what I thought I wanted to do, but even so here I am and I couldn’t ask for anything more out of my Army career (up to this point at least.)
- I’m thankful for my friends. Friends new and old. I have some great old friends that have stuck by me through a lot of different stuff and even though I don’t talk to them or see them as much as I like it is great to know that when I’m in the area they’ll make time to see me and we can pick up where we left off. I’ve also made some new friends who have made my life bearable and enjoyable through basic and DLI and now in Texas. Making friends isn’t the easiest thing for me and yet I’ve been able to find two or three good friends in all these places and I’m just so thankful for their presence in my life, whether for a couple of months or a year (and hopefully longer.)
- I’m thankful for Christmas. I know I said I was trying to focus more on Thanksgiving and not skip right ahead to Christmas, but there are good reasons I love Christmas so much and I’m thankful for those reasons. Reasons such as having a wonderful home to go back to where I can relax and be myself and spend time with my family. Also the main reason, the reason FOR Christmas, and that is the birth of Jesus. I can’t even imagine, can’t even fathom, what my life would be or what this world would be without Jesus in it. Knowing that there is a God who is in control of all this nonsense on earth, and that He loves me and has my best interest at heart is sometimes the only thing that keeps me from going a little crazy. And an integral part of that knowledge is Christmas, and Jesus being born so he could one day die for us.
- I’m thankful for my life. The only real hardships I’ve faced have been those I’ve essentially brought upon myself through my own foolishness. Aside from those occasions I have nothing to complain about. I have always been ridiculously healthy with good hearing and 20/20 vision. I’m not allergic to anything. I’ve never gone hungry (unless I was just being too lazy to feed myself which really doesn’t count.) I had a fantastic education. I’ve been blessed with a sharp mind and opportunities to use it. I’ve never had to really struggle to get anything. My house has never caught on fire, or been robbed or anything like that. I have had a privileged and blessed life and I can take no responsibility for that, I can only be incredibly thankful to the people here on earth who have helped me along and to God for everything else. (I hope this one doesn’t come off as me bragging or anything like that. I take no credit whatsoever for any of this stuff because I did nothing to earn it or deserve it, which is why I’m so thankful for it.)
Five seems like a good number to stop at although I could easily continue.
I wish that more attention was paid to Thanksgiving. We need some more thankfulness in our lives, I think. It isn’t just a day to mark the beginning of the Christmas season. It makes me sad that Thanksgiving is almost just a hurdle to jump before getting good deals at Black Friday sales (which are starting earlier and earlier, how sad. Although I have to be honest and say I went shopping earlier… I guess I’m a bit of a hypocrite.) I wish there were more songs about being thankful that we could sing in Church, and more movies we could watch to remind us of how much we have to be thankful for. How much more meaningful would Christmas be if we went into it full of thankfulness already? What would our gift giving/Christmas shopping look like? Maybe we’d buy less junk and spend money and time on more useful things.
I suppose the first place to start with these idealistic goals is with myself, because if I as one person can’t do it, there is no way I can expect anyone else to either.
I will end with this quote which has been stuck in the back of my mind since I first read it (which I confess to finding on another blog post about Thanksgiving, found here http://emmausroadworshipers.com/2014/11/25/thanksgiving-as-worship-worship-as-thanksgiving/).
"One of the most excellent methods of showing our thankfulness for deliverances is to tell our brethren what the Lord has done for us. We mention our sorrows readily enough; why are we so slow to declare our deliverances?" -- Charles Spurgeon, Treasury of David
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
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